The Gaming Den

I hate the bit about airplane fuel not being able to melt steel. The fuel only has to burn hot enough to ignite the combustible things in the offices, the average house fire burns at around 1100 degrees so the towers could get up to at least that. The fire doesn't need to melt the steel, if you heat steel enough it will warp, it will also lose some of its load bearing capacity.

It gets worse:

O'Donnel said that in response to an engineering report made specially for her because she said she wanted to see evidence that crashing a plane into the WTC could make it fall like that.

Some engineers took her up on it, made a report citing various things and laying out the factors and all and she refused to accept it because she didn't believe fire could melt steel, but ultimately because she wanted to believe a conspiracy.

That aside, yeah. That's what I always figured. It was halfway up the building, lots of stress on the structure, likely breaking point.

The tempature of fires varies a lot depending on a number of factors, including oxygen avaliable. That's what we use to melt steel for industrial applications. Now, since the towers were not a blast furnace it didn't get hot enough to actually melt the steel, but what Juton said is accurate. They also took severe damage to the outside, which was actually load-bearing to a much greater extent than normal due to an unusual design with a load-bearing exterior and a massive central column instead of the normal frame.

WTC7 is generally considered a seperate issue, with some non-Truthers having suggested that it was blown deliberately by the fire department and didn't get recorded due to the general confusion.

Frank wrote:Any time anyone uses the word "nanothermite" I want to back away a quickly as possible.

I don't get it.

name here wrote:It's not a real thing.

It's not?

Nanothermite is a real thing. It's also called "superthermite". It's also called "aluminothermite" under some circumstances. But mostly it's just called "thermite".

Here's the deal: a "thermite reaction" is one in which you have a metal oxide and an elemental metal that differ in reaction energy such that, when heated, one of the metals will smelt and the other metal will burn. This is pretty damn cool, because any energy you get out of this will happen regardless of what is going on with the air. In fact, it doesn't even need to be in an atmosphere, since it brings its own Oxygen. You can run this reaction under water, under ground, or in the hard vacuum of deep space.

Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty. Most thermite reactions, as you might imagine, require a lot of heat to start and don't actually produce that much extra energy (since it is based on the energy difference between the cost of smelting of one metal and the energy output of burning another). Also, the finer your particles are ground up, the faster your reaction is going to be. What you use in commercial thermite is extremely finely ground Aluminum and Rust, because the energy output of transferring Oxygen from the rust to the Aluminum happens to be titanic. Also, of course, the particles in commercial thermite are incredibly finely ground and well mixed. Because, duh.

Of course, any thermite reaction needs some catalyst to get started. It needs to be heated to the point that will smelt the metal oxide and burn the pure metal. In commercial thermite, we use magnesium metals, because it will burn underwater and if you've ever seen a magnesium flare you know it's easy to light and burns hot and fast. But any heat source would do. A burning airplane, for example, would get hot enough eventually.

So the bottom line is that the "residue" you would have left over from a "nanothermite" reaction is exactly the same as what you'd have in any other thermite reaction. The "nano" part is basically just advertising and doesn't impact the end results. And if it were a commercial thermite compound, the end results would be: super heated iron and aluminum oxide. Now a 747 has 66 tonnes of aluminum in it, and the core supports of the Twin Towers were made of steel. So I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if you were to go through the wreckage of two towers and two airplanes, that you'd find a lot of aluminum oxide and iron. Like, tonnes of the stuff.

But that doesn't make it "nanothermite" residue. And when people say that nanothermite residue was found, I back away slowly and extricate myself from the conversation as quickly as possible. Because that is serious chemistry fail.

-Username17

mean_liar wrote:Regarding monetary velocity, you're putting the cart before the horse and conflating several issues at once.

Not really. Remember, Americans often have very little savings compared to the rest of the world. They rank very low on the world's biggest savers. So to make big purchases (like a new Plasma TV), Americans must often rely on credit.

The point I highlighted isn't saying that monetary velocity = more profitable banks.

What it's saying is that credit lets people buy more stuff (and thus increase consumer spending/demand), and this is a good thing. Except when people tried to game the system and it blew up on everyone's faces. Because of that, people couldn't buy stuff using credit anymore (even if they legitimately should) and thus resulting in a slump in demand.

It's not putting a cart before the horse. I'm saying that you need another horse named "credit" to get demand flowing.

BOGAMBSL is basically the monetary base: the amount of cash sloshing around. That spike is QE. The point is that "the amount of money" is terribly hard to track and ultimately sort of meaningless in a modern integrated economy.

Here's the thing though: You're showing that the money supply is pretty huge vs consumer demand beside basic goods (food and energy). But to make luxury good purchases - i.e. plasma tvs - often requires the use of credit on the part of the American consumer.

Unless you're saying that Americans can't even buy food or energy anymore - but that needs a different graph.

Moreover, a lot of that money is in fact stuck with companies that are not spending, as opposed to regular consumers. So getting those companies to start spending will also require other measures.

Universal health-care is not batshit insane. A worthless compromise that doesn't address anything is.

Yes. But I said pushing universal healthcare regardless of the political situation is batshit insane. Not that universal healthcare is batshit insane.

That's why a worthless compromise resulted out of it.

Same for GITMO.

High-minded ideals is not a replacement for political sense. The Emancipation Proclamation for instance nowadays is not primarily remembered for failing to free the slaves in Union Border States. Nor do people remember that it was delayed many months for want of a Union victory of any sort.

It's remembered primarily for freeing the slaves.

Because unlike Obama, Lincoln showed quite a lot of political acumen. Like knowing when to make a proclamation as opposed to simply pushing for one based on ideological reasons.

The US prison system can handle prisoners well enough. It is presumably only kept open because there is no compelling reason to keep its current occupants in other than the US military wants them in.

The previous administration totally compromised any possibility of civilian trials, as a lot of evidence will simply be thrown out on grounds that "coercive measures" were used, even if it turns out that information gained via torture/sleep deprivation/tickle-me-Elmo turned out to be true (I added the last one as even the suggestion that torture was used - even if unproven - can get evidence thrown out).

They're going to military trials again as a result. Something they should have known if they had checked the whole thing out rather than making a rushed pronouncement to kill GITMO.

And no, releasing everyone isn't a good idea when somethng like one in five Gitmo detainee released just went back to blowing up people. Even the existing release process of "innocent" GITMO detainees is proving seriously flawed.

'went back to' is a strong word. There is evidence to suggest that a number of them started blowing up people, because the US had just falsely imprisoned them for 5 years and they where very pissed off about it.

I'm taking it off CBS's article title:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/ ... 9148.shtml

"18% of Gitmo Detainees Go Back To Terror"

I'm not gonna argue against the idea that some of those guys who were caught got may have been radicalized by the experience (like how Elmo turned to Gitmo on The Daily Show).

But I think it's kinda hard to start committing acts of terror unless you already knew some folks who did that sort of thing in the first place.

Anyway, argue with CBS. I just copy-pasta'd the news .

well, you had just been in a jail with some real terrorists

True, but again I don't really know the actual figures of how many were good guys turned bad. Just the 18% "Went back" to terror thing reported by CBS.

Zinegata wrote:True, but again I don't really know the actual figures of how many were good guys turned bad. Just the 18% "Went back" to terror thing reported by CBS.

It'd be a bit better to say that "18% of the people imprisoned in Gitmo for terrorist activities went on to commit terrorist activities" as that wording is neutral on their past activities.

but... yeah, whatever.

The most accurate really is:

"18% of the people imprisoned in Gitmo for suspected terrorist activities went on to or went back to. commit terrorist activities"

But regardless, I continue to blame CBS and their headline!

PhoneLobster wrote:So now five seconds ago you were complaining about mindless Bush bashing, and now you are posting irrelevant unsubstantial fluffy political attacks against Obama?

No, actually I was giving more meat to the notion that McCain would have behaved just as Obama. It's not really an attack, and by the way, there is something called a middle ground between one extreeme and the other.

For all the Bush Bashing in the world, at least when people complained about him playing golf, he stoped playing it. We, as a nation, tend not to like royalty (celebrieites are a different matter, although we sometimes call them rotalty, so the presidency of John F. Kennedy is not an exception to the rule) and instead, especially in a time of "war" or "hardship" like humble presidents; humble arrogant bastard presidents are the best. Abraham Lincoln is a good example of a humble arrogant bastard.

The POTUS has the biggest "bully pulpit" in the nation But when his actions say one thing, his statements cannot counter those actions by that bully pulpit alone. He can talk about the deficit all he wants, but when he spends like a drunken sailor on his personal expense so will everyone else in government; including the state and local levels.

The President talks about the "rich," but he is the richest person in the United States because he has the complete spending power of the United States Federal Government behind him. The more he behaves as a king the less political power he has.

And that makes everything bad for everyone, even for progressives because it is harder for him to push the agenda without that political power. I don't think he would have had a whooping in 2010 had he been a truely a war time / depression time president; merely a minor setback.

Acturally the truthers have one thing right, the problem was their assumption. There was no way that a single airplane could take out a real skyscraper in the manner that the airplanes did to the towers. The problem was that the world trade center towers were not "real skyscrapers" ... they were pieces of crap. It was a tube frame design, made to resist the wind, not resist a collapse of the structure. Note also that this design has improved considerably since then.

Frank wrote:Nanothermite is a real thing. It's also called "superthermite". It's also called "aluminothermite" under some circumstances. But mostly it's just called "thermite".

Yeah. I know about thermite. The guys on Top Gear were kind enough to demonstrate what it as by letting it burn through the hood and engine block of a car.

Frank (emphasis mine) wrote:But that doesn't make it "nanothermite" residue.

Ahh... That's the part I didn't quite understand. I gotcha now. Thank you!

tzor wrote:when he spends like a drunken sailor on his personal expense so will everyone else in government

What?

tzor wrote:when he spends like a drunken sailor on his personal expense so will everyone else in government

Sailor's take umbrage with your phrasing

On the thermite, and it's ability to oxidize without oxygen (as it brings it's own): Could thermite be used as a propellant? Like gunpowder is? I'm just thinking of zero atmosphere applications in firearms...

Prak_Anima wrote:Sailor's take umbrage with your phrasing

I'll have to look it up, but there was a funny epsiode where the first lady ran out of bills on a spending spree in India.

That's an interesting currency, unlike other currencies there isn't a small base currency that they expand into the millions and billions for government spending. There are oddly placed higher units that don't fall into the million or billion mark.

In Indian English, values greater than or equal to hundred thousand Indian rupees are counted in terms of lakhs (one lakh = hundred thousand), and crores (one crore = ten million). For example, the amount 3,25,84,729.25 is read as three crores, twenty-five lakhs, eighty-four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-nine rupees and twenty-five paise. The use of million or billion, as is standard in American or British English, is not very common.

So Obama is the fisher king?

The thing I don't understand is that cutting taxes to employers allows them to invest more and hire more people, but it does not encourage them to hire more people. So why do people talk about it like cutting taxes encourages more people to be hired?

I mean, legally you are allowed to paint your car with brightly coloured flower and unicorns designs, but you are not encouraged to. Otherwise the roads would be a whole lot more colourful.

Parthenon wrote:The thing I don't understand is that cutting taxes to employers allows them to invest more and hire more people, but it does not encourage them to hire more people. So why do people talk about it like cutting taxes encourages more people to be hired?

I mean, legally you are allowed to paint your car with brightly coloured flower and unicorns designs, but you are not encouraged to. Otherwise the roads would be a whole lot more colourful.

That's always bothered me. Especially because in reality it is the other way. Taxes are an incentive to invest in your business, because business expenses are tax deductible.

Consider it this way: you make a dollar on your business. You can take the money home, or you can risk that money on potentially higher returns in the future by investing in your business. And if you were living in Somalia, that would be the end of the story. But you're not. You're living in a society that has some taxes. Let's say you'd be paying 30% on it. So while you could still invest it and get a dollar worth of investment, if you took it home you'd only get 70 cents. The government would get the other 30 cents. So in essence, when you consider risking money by investing in your business, you are risking 70 cents of your own money to get one dollar worth of investment. The government "pays" the other 30 cents.

But let's change the tax rate. Now you're only paying 20% tax. Now when you invest a dollar, 80 cents come out of your pocket and Uncle Sam is only paying 20. Investment is now much riskier for you, because you are getting less for your business when you take an equal amount of money out of your wallet.

Higher taxes are an incentive to invest money. They are also an incentive to work more. Higher taxes are straight up good for the economy. Even before we consider the fact that the government actually spends tax dollars on building roads and running schools and doing other things that both directly hire people and also improve commerce.

-Username17

Low taxes for the lower and middle class gives these folks more free money, which they can then use to buy shiny stuff (like say, RPG books). Buying stuff increases consumer demand, giving businesses more incentive to expand and produce more stuff, hence growing the economy.

For instance, the couple hundred dollars rebate is totally irrelevant for a big corporation, but that's enough to buy a computer or several books which can up the deman for those products.

The problem is when businesses realize that it's simply so much cheaper to setup operations abroad because of cheaper labor.

Parthenon wrote:The thing I don't understand is that cutting taxes to employers allows them to invest more and hire more people, but it does not encourage them to hire more people. So why do people talk about it like cutting taxes encourages more people to be hired?

First and foremost, I am not the one to argue that cutting taxes "will" result in hiring more people. the driver of employment is small business. Small businesses do one of two things, they grow or they die (really small businesses such as family operations can maintain a steady state in their niche community). Small businesses generally tend to grow because bigger generally tends to reduce the fear of failure (not that it actually reduces the probability of failure, many small businessed grow themselves to bankrupcy because they can't transition). Fear, uncertanty and doubt, on any level of economic activity will prevent the normal growth cycle. Cutting taxes can (note the word can) counter balance reductions in short term demand.

Corporate taxes, on the other hand, will influence a multi-national company from adding more workers in the US or in Europe (or China). Once again, it's not just "any taxes." That's the rub.

Zinegata wrote:The problem is when businesses realize that it's simply so much cheaper to setup operations abroad because of cheaper labor.

Ironically, that is not the case for a variety of market sectors. (Corporations learn the hard way.) It is possible in some manufacturing sectors, not because the low cost of overseas labor, but because of the relatively cheap (really? yes really) cost of transportation fuel; getting raw materials across the world and back again as finished products does not significantly impact the cost savings for the cheaper labor.

By the way, I wasn't talking about you specifically tzor. But, half of what you just said doesn't mean anything.

tzor wrote:Fear, uncertanty and doubt, on any level of economic activity will prevent the normal growth cycle. Cutting taxes can (note the word can) counter balance reductions in short term demand.

Maybe I'm just an idiot, but "counter balance reductions in short term demand" means absolutely nothing to me.

You obviously have a point, but unless you explain it a bit better I have no idea what you are talking about.

And then theres the fact that you say that any fear at all will prevent businesses growing. In a recession and with all the fear of terrorism, global warming, apocalypses in 2012 or whatever there will always be fear, whether taxes exist or not. Surely the answer is to change it so that businesses are encouraged to invest or hire despite the fear rather than attempting to reduce the fear?

tzor wrote:Corporate taxes, on the other hand, will influence a multi-national company from adding more workers in the US or in Europe (or China). Once again, it's not just "any taxes." That's the rub.

All this is saying is that "some stuff affects other stuff" and "it depends".

Again, I'm obviously an idiot for not being able to see what you are saying, but if you had said

High corporate taxes does X because of reason A, B and C, so if you reduced corporate taxes to β level then it would encourage companies to do Y and Z because of D and E.

then it would mean something to me.

As it is, your explanation is useless.

Parthenon wrote:Maybe I'm just an idiot, but "counter balance reductions in short term demand" means absolutely nothing to me.

You obviously have a point, but unless you explain it a bit better I have no idea what you are talking about.

And then theres the fact that you say that any fear at all will prevent businesses growing. In a recession and with all the fear of terrorism, global warming, apocalypses in 2012 or whatever there will always be fear, whether taxes exist or not. Surely the answer is to change it so that businesses are encouraged to invest or hire despite the fear rather than attempting to reduce the fear?

"counter balance reductions in short term demand" means that even though fewer people bought Spacely's Sprockets fancy sprokets last month if expenses could be reduced until the next economic cycle when more people would buy spockets allowing for further corporate growth, then one can either maintain the status quo or prepare for the next economic cycle. Given the choice between cutting employees or lowering tax burdens most employers would gladly prefer the latter because laying off people isn't something nice guys like to do.

The fear is anything that can impact their medium term bottom line. No one wants to invest time talent and treasure only to have to decalre bankrupcy six months down the road. The more undertanty there is and the more fear that problems can arise the more people hold on to their cash reserves and not use them for expansion and more employees.

Thus global warming, terrorism, etc are not fears. New regulations that would require them to spend lots of money they do not have, new tax burdens, are the types of fears that keep small businesses from expanding, because they have to make assumptions on their costs and their revenues. When they can't do that, they do not take risks.